Signals & Systems

Lecture 1.0

1. Signals
2. Systems
3. Examples

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Signals

A signal is a function of independent variables

that carries information. For example:
– Electrical signal: voltages or currents on wires or
circuits
– Speech signal: human voice, a dog’s bark, etc.
– Image signal: color shading or light intensity levels of
a photograph
– Video signal: an image signal with varying intensity
levels.

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Independent variables
e.g. time, distance, position, temperature and
pressure.
– It can continuous or discrete.

– It can be one dimensional (1-D), two-dimensional (2-D) or

multidimensional (M-D).

– The speech signal has 1-D independent variable which is time.

An image signal has 2-D independent variables and they are the
two spatial variables. The black-and-white video signal can be
considered having 3-D independent variables which are the two
spatial variables and the time.

In this course we concentrate on 1-D independent variable which

we call time. 3
Characterization of signals

• Signal can be either a continuous or a discrete

function of independent variables.
– Continuous-Time (CT) signals
function of x(t) where t is a continuous value
– Discrete-Time (DT) signals
function of x[n], where n is a discrete value

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Continuous-Time (CT) Signals

A CT signal is one which is defined at every instant of

time over some interval.

x(t)

An example of CT signal
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Discrete-Time (DT) signals
A DT signal is defined only at discrete intervals of time over some
time interval.
x[n ]
x [ -4 ]
x [0] x [1]
x [ -3 ]

-2 -1 2 3
-4 -3 0 1
n
x [ -1 ] x [2]
x [ -2 ] x [3]

An example of DT signal

DT signal can be processed by digital computers and digital signal

processors (DSPs).

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• Deterministic signal: a signal that can be uniquely derived by set of
mathematical functions. These signals can be predicted or
reproduced identically for arbitrary times.

• Non-deterministic signal: a signal that have a unique realization e.g.

speech signal, a word spoken by human.

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Systems
A system processes the signal. It can be single
input-output or multi input-output. A system
reacts to the applied input signals at its output.

x(t) CT System y(t)

X[n] DT System Y[n]

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• System could be an electrical circuit having an
input voltage and an output voltage.

• System could be a microphone that process

acoustic or speech signal to a computer or an
amplifier.

• System could be an air conditioner that controls

temperature of a room.

• System could be an engine of a car that controls

the rotation of car wheels.

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Simpler systems can be connected together
to a make more complicated system. It can
be done in 3 basic ways:
Cascade S1 S2

S1

Parallel ±

S2

Feedback ± S1

S2

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System interconnections